The Not Quite Best Games of 2011

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

The Not Quite Best Games of 2011

Yahtzee rounds out the honorable mentions for his Top 5 and Bottom 5 lists.

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[Xenominim]

I wonder if we could ever get a worst games of all time list. You see best games of all time lists with things like X-Com and Super Mario Bros. always near the top. But what games are so wretchedly bad as to be remembered years later as having caused pain to so many?

 

[Richard Beer]

I can understand why you put the Two Shooters at the top of your hate list. They're both shitty single-player games.

I can also understand why people accuse you of an anti-shooter bias because of it. You don't have an anti-shooter bias, you have an anti-multiplayer bias. You make no effort to hide it, it's something that's well-known to your regulars, and it's entirely your prerogative, so it's not the problem per se.

The problem is that Battlefield 3 (I can't speak for MW3 as I haven't played it for more than a few minutes on my step-son's XBox) is a superb multiplayer FPS that encourages fantastic teamwork, allows genuine tactical freedom and is hilarious fun if you want it to be, especially if you have a whole bunch of friends to play it with.

I've barely played an FPS online since I got a life about 8 years ago, but I've put almost 100 hours into BF3. It really is that good a multiplayer game.

So the problem, and you should really understand this without me or anyone else having to spell it out for you, is that you've judged a game with a 90% focus on multiplayer on its single-player experience. Perhaps if you'd given the award to the "BF3 and MW3 Single Player Campaigns" instead of the games as a whole, people would understand.

Consciously or not, you've deliberately courted controversy with this one. I don't buy your ignorance one bit

P.S. I really enjoyed Dead Island for the same reasons: in co-op with friends it was hilarious!

 

[veloper]

I recall Yahtzee's main criticism against Arkham City was that he got too distracted by all the sidequests and question marks.
If you're not suffering from ADD, you will notice not only the bossfights are better, but the overal encounter design in the second half of the game is also much improved. No longer can you get away with just pressing block when the signs appear and stunning the occasional armed villain with the batcloak. The game still starts out that way for players to learn to game, but later mixed groups of armored and shielded baddies with guns and stunbatons lying around, force the player to use more varied moves and consider tactical positioning.

It's simply a better game than the original, for the combat alone.

Side quests and puzzles can even be completed after doing the main storyline, if you care about the pacing of the story or about roleplaying the batman. The transition from the end game to the aftergame works pretty well and is worth seeing.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

So the problem, and you should really understand this without me or anyone else having to spell it out for you, is that you've judged a game with a 90% focus on multiplayer on its single-player experience. Perhaps if you'd given the award to the "BF3 and MW3 Single Player Campaigns" instead of the games as a whole, people would understand.

Take a look at this.

 

[Falseprophet]

I wonder if we could ever get a worst games of all time list. You see best games of all time lists with things like X-Com and Super Mario Bros. always near the top. But what games are so wretchedly bad as to be remembered years later as having caused pain to so many?

there [http://www.ugo.com/games/the-worst-video-games-of-all-time]. You always get E.T. and Custer's Revenge on these lists, and usually a collection of a) bad ports, b) movie tie-ins, c) low-quality imitators of much more successful games and d) the out-and-out offensive.

 

[Falseprophet]

So the problem, and you should really understand this without me or anyone else having to spell it out for you, is that you've judged a game with a 90% focus on multiplayer on its single-player experience. Perhaps if you'd given the award to the "BF3 and MW3 Single Player Campaigns" instead of the games as a whole, people would understand.

So why aren't these games just released as multiplayer online arenas, and they don't even have to bother with their linear, set piece to set piece, badly-written single-player campaigns?

 

[Haenf]

Arkham City is a strange one for me too - I do think it's better than the first game, but I remember having more fun with Arkham Asylum, which doesn't really make sense to me. City just seems to be lacking that unquantifiable magic that Asylum had.

Ah well, both are great games anyway and that's all that matters to me!

 

[Erttheking]

You know Yahtzee, people are calling bullshit this time because you put COD and BF ABOVE Duke Nukem Forever, ten years of buildup and a disapointing payoff and you say battlefield and call of duty are worse. What did you expect?

 

[Absimilliard]

Just mentioning: it's not like Yahtzee is going to change his own personal opinion about any of these games (nor online multiplayer) due to any arguments about how other people have different preferences.

 

[Zhukov]

I can see where he's coming from in regards to Deus Ex.

I loved it, favourite game of the year, but damn if they didn't try their best to screw it up. The boss finds didn't bother me overmuch, but the ending buttons were pretty hard to forgive.

 

[Bobic]

And I'm just a little bit dubious about showering accolade on a game that's not as good as its daddy just for old time's sake. Because the moment you do that, you enable it.

Says the guy who named portal 2 his number 1 game of the year after stating it was good, yet not as good as portal one, whilst stating that one of his reasons was penance for not giving portal one an award of some sort.

Hehe, only kidding, Portal 2 was easily my game of the year too (though I preferred it to its prequel).

 

[Richard Beer]

I'm not defending their single-player games, False Prophet (as I said, they were poor). I'm explaining why people are hatin' on Yahtzee's decision to name them his worst games, and expressing surprise that he's surprised.

 

[Richard Beer]

DeadlyYellow, that's basically a non-sequitur (and isn't posting links to dictionary definitions a bit... last decade?). I haven't said there's anything wrong with Yahtzee expressing his subjective opinion. In fact I explicitly said that was fine. I said that he has judged the whole game, including the multiplayer component, on his single-player experience, and that's what people who get angry on the Internet have a problem with.

 

[Gaute Eiterjord]

Now don't feel bad for shitting on the rather awful shooter industry, they are rather rubbish nowadays. They probably will continue with this for some time too, which is sad. There's a serious lack of innovation and creative thoughts in the success formula, and me for one have just ended up so sick of shooting terrorist after terrorist that I basicly stopped playing them around October, when Battlefield 3 just turned out as a dull gasp. I'd rather like them to make games relying on stealth and non-violence, a bit more difficult than Deus Ex Human Revolution's easy sneaking. Hopefully upcoming stealth games like Dishonored and Thi4f will prove a better experience for the coward I am, letting me huddle together like a little ball in the shadows hoping the guard didn't see me. And hopefully it will cure its stupid number-in-title disease.

 

[Absimilliard]

DeadlyYellow, that's basically a non-sequitur (and isn't posting links to dictionary definitions a bit... last decade?). I haven't said there's anything wrong with Yahtzee expressing his subjective opinion. In fact I explicitly said that was fine. I said that he has judged the whole game, including the multiplayer component, on his single-player experience, and that's what people who get angry on the Internet have a problem with.

Yahtzee's disdain for online multiplayer is well established (for regular viewers). He probably didn't feel it was necessary to repeat it...

 

[MrBaskerville]

Check out Sentient, Obitus, Ubik and Unlimited Saga. These games gives me a headache just thinking about them. Sentient and ubik (based on a philip k. dick novel of all things) is practically unplayable.

Btw personally i would probably put Shadows of the damned on some sort of list featuring the best games of 2011. Might not have been perfect but i just loved the stupid humour and the unpredictability of the game, it seemed to have a bit more heart than most other game i played from 2011.

 

[The Crazy Legs]

Yeah... I was a bit surprised to not see Call of Juarez: The Cartel on the list. Everyone I know (me included) disliked that game. But Yahtzee has a point. I don't hate the game, I just get depressed whenever I think about it. Is that hatred? ... It's entirely possible.